001foreign good evening I'd like to call the school committee meeting for Monday March 27 2023 daughter at Stanford the Pledge of Allegiance please why the United States of America like to remind you that this meeting is being live stream on the YouTube DHS TV media also being taped by the Dartmouth Community television channels 9 and 18 for future broadcasts on a number of different uh dates and times through the week and we appreciate that if you have any cell phones pagers beepers if you would kindly put them on silent we would appreciate that roll call please Wisconsin John Nunes yep Mary wait here Kathleen Amaral here Shannon Jenkins here okay uh uh at this point we have allotted 10 minutes for public comment if anyone wishes to speak on any items tonight I will ask
002that if you have a question about the budget that hearing is coming up and we'll take those comments at that point in time but if you have any comments on anything else on the agenda tonight uh you're more than welcome again this 10 minutes total so please be cognizant of that time hearing none okay thank you we will move on all right next item is approval of the regular session minutes of March 6 2023 so moves second by Dr Jenkins second by Ms Waite on the motion any discussion hearing none all in favor opposed motion carries unanimously and the executive session minutes of the same night moved by Dr Jenkins second by Miss Amaral on a motion any discussion hearing none all in favor aye opposed motion carries unanimously uh regular session minutes for March
00320th and March 22nd which were the superintendent candidate interviews moved by Mr Oliver second by Miss Waite on the motion any discussion hearing none all in favor aye aye opposed motion carries unanimously all right student rep the student rep report Dallas good afternoon everyone so Dartmouth is in full swing as we approach senior graduation uh the end of the year for everyone uh prom is on June 1st and the senior class is really looking forward to it the senior class has done a good job of raising a lot of money to make sure the location is good so uh overall I mean I'm happy about it the senior class is pretty happy about it Senior Week is approaching as well also some good events coming up very happy about that as well um I'm aware
004that this is kind of a lack of information and that my job isn't entirely just to say when prom is but the student advisory Council has been pretty busy recently as APS are coming to close AP tests coming up in May so a lot of classes are starting to wind down the actual content and going into more review which is fairly intense what I'm hoping and that what should happen for next meeting is that we should have a much more robust system of student surveying per se so uh based on the items of the agenda we've been unable so far to get anything super effective going but I think that by next meeting we can definitely have something that will allow us to survey the student body in a way that allows them to tell
005us anonymously their thoughts on the items of the agenda so that should enable us to do our job a lot better so that's all thank you sir thank you comments questions yeah okay thank you can I ask you a question sure absolutely so so I'm just curious right I don't know if you're going to plan this to stay we have a pretty long agenda this evening but um I'm wondering if you've heard any feedback from your students who are able to visit with the superintendent candidates um while they are because I don't think we're scheduled to get to that to like 8 45 so I want to make sure if the students have some thoughts that we do get to hear them I personally so there is a um a student interview Committee in charge
006of uh I think they know they gave interviews to those superintendents and I haven't spoken to them personally so I'm not completely sure at what the general um thought of the student body is on the superintendents I mean I know there were um surveys put out in in terms of what the students would want to see and then I think we've observed those results in that interview committee is has done their job very well as far as I know so I think that's uh somewhat not out of my reach but out of what I know currently so that's fine and I want to be clear that we do feedback from the students I just wanted to know if you had heard anything else so we we have gotten some feedback we haven't ignored it I
007just thought I'd ask thank you no worries okay I'm sorry and by the way he is making he did make plans to stay the whole evening because I did give him you know with you know that's great plus hour meeting I I did give him the opportunity to opt out type of deal so we're good at that point uh Mr Rossi is everyone here okay okay so we'll welcome Mr Rossi and some folks from the Middle School up for an exciting Spotlight on kids I wanted to give a Shameless plug for Newsies Jr which will be at the Dartmouth Middle School this Thursday and Friday at seven o'clock tickets are ten dollars at the door and uh kids if I just came from rehearsal kids have been crushing it so hopefully people can come on
008out and see it what path do you have in that Mr Rossi before we get to this you know I will be making my debut as uh Governor Theodore Roosevelt so absolutely 18.99 very cool so on behalf of the Middle School we'd like to thank you for this opportunity to put a spotlight on our kindness Cafe it's a program we're very proud of and representing the cafe tonight we have Mrs Elizabeth Duval we have Hayden Barreto and we have Helena Sylvia so what I thought I'd do is I'd read the mission statement that Mrs default has created and then we have a video that can uh show you the team in action so the kindness Cafe is a student-run Enterprise that Services the staff of the Dartmouth middle school every Wednesday morning the cafe provides
009opportunities for students to learn valuable job-related skills including but not limited to counting money making change stocking shelves and reading orders the cafe also provides opportunities for students to work on interpersonal skills that include verbal and non-verbal communication the ability to handle conflict teamwork empathy flexible thinking and active listening students gain confidence and build Independence when they deliver orders throughout the school building which is the ultimate goal of our kindness Cafe so if we can chew that video up we can take a look and see what it looks like I think you may have to press play Mr Russ where am I I think we don't I don't think we have Mr pratty here we're a little bit lost yeah try it one more time Jonathan come on out coming in ah there you go
010[Music] Hannah's Cafe coffee tea snacks bars Etc are all offered students prints out the form request gives it to the pal student willing to deliver that day and they fulfill the order the pal student will put their name in a little caddy with the people 's name class number items and head out independent need to deliver the kindness Cafe order all money that is brought in by the cafes put right back into ordering more supplies having the cafe questions and having organization and basic social skills students will love it some prefer delivering orders better than servicing the cafe but all students have a role in the cafe success welcome to the kindness Cafe [Music] [Applause] so I do think we have some treats all right let's do it anyway okay thank you thank you awesome
011thank you mail I appreciate that one that's nice thank you so much beautiful perfect that's great thank you very nice thank you it's beautiful thank you so much thank you you did a great job so if you have any questions for us I think uh Miss Dupont is ready three questions this was uh great presentation it's when when did this start um we started my first year teaching so I've been there about seven years and I always knew I wanted to have some sort of like service project so I thought about popcorn and then somehow we just came up with um coffee and treats and stuff we originally started baking as part of our life skills but then once covet hit we kind of had to like readjust and change things up so now we
012sell all prepackaged things which is nice because sometimes teachers will contact us during the day and be like I need a pack of chips or I need something and we can deliver that so it does having the pre-packaged stuff is actually a little bit better for staff and students sure what a great program that teaches skills all around for sure and great job to the two of you thank you yeah right here yeah she's smart she's like I'll do the money part so I'll just say you know some days you wake up and you you're looking at a four hour school committee a meeting agenda and you think to yourself why am I doing this and then you come to the school committee and you remember why and this really shows that so thank you
013thank you thank you thank you um thank you ladies you've done a really good job it's fantastic I remember when it began when Liam was still at the school um I wonder like has there been any thought around making it like a I don't know like a poor school club and having some opportunities for yeah inclusions and some friendship building we've kind of thought about it um we used to have our community connections program which was after school so we would do some of that um during then but since covet happened everything kind of like adjusted a little bit and I think we're finally now getting into like having learning Partners back in and so I do hope that we get to you know open it more up then because the kids always ask me
014like can I buy something yeah what about me can I come even just to learn that skill themselves and to learn from your students have you know the learning Partners learning from your students right is something that might be beneficial really great job Larry oh yes um just a great job it's so wonderful to see them navigating everybody navigating around the hallway and I just know if I was a teacher having coffee brought to me in the morning um would just bring a huge amount of my day so uh so thank you so much for this presentation and for all you guys do and the school to to make the teachers a little bit the day is a little bit brighter and happier so thank you thank you thank you very much and just curious
015how many orders do you deliver during on a Tuesday usually we get we have our regulars and then there's some people that are just kind of contact me during the day and be like can I have chips and bring out my chips or can I have this um so and every year kind of like grows and grows and um yeah so that's super that's good good luck thank you thank you and thank you thank you thank you thank you so much all right next item for the middle school PTO with their consent agenda for their fundraiser I don't know if anybody can I'll move approval Mr chair by Dr Jenkins second by Ms Wade on the motion any discussion hearing none all in favor aye opposed motion carries unanimously all right so to say that
016we are way ahead of schedule would be an understatement uh thinking a little bit out of the bikes which I know is dangerous sometimes do we want to take a take up the uh superintendent search and discussion now and vote where there's no set time for this one so I mean we can't we can't start the budget here until 6 35 at the earliest interview scan interview to Canada I mean number one they're probably not even here yet with all due respect which is fine type of deal but what I would you know we want to take take up uh the superintendent selection type of deal I'm good with that sure so that works okay all right so anyone let me let me just that just general uh I just want to seriously take uh
017this opportunity to thank everyone that had a big Park in this uh uh from the interview committee to uh everyone that went on the site visits to the different communities whether it was via Zoom or actual travel uh to also helping out when the candidates were here you know going around town in such a the students that you know and everyone that was in you know gave up over their time to uh to meet with meet with the candidates and such it's it's appreciated it's uh it's a yeoman's work job and a lot of work time and effort goes into it and I for one uh having done this a number of times greatly appreciate everybody's effort Chris Shannon you know being the members on that committee you know I know there were several late
018nights types of deal just a few I know so but uh thank you so with that I'll open it up to my committee members Shannon so I'll have to say I'm I'm a little bit torn but I think perhaps from seeing the feedback and from my own experience it seems to me that this comes down to two candidates it seems to me that it's uh Miss Saba McGuire or Mr Girardi seemed to be the majority of feedback that we received was about the two of them and so to me it's between those two and I see strengths in both of the candidates and so honestly I don't know right I'm interested in hearing what you all think about this because I see different strengths from both of the candidates I've heard from a lot of
019different people about half of them have said they liked one half of them like none of you all are any help to me the comments seem to be about 50 50 so I'm interested to hear what other people think but my thoughts seem to be that there seems to be two clear Front Runners and maybe we should focus our discussion on those two unless people disagree no that's fine I agree Chris yeah so first of all I want to Echo everything that you've said um being on the screening committee and with Shannon and everyone else that took part in it uh it was this was a thorough transparent process that I'm I can say that I'm extremely proud of the way that this committee as well as our staff as a whole in Dartmouth has
020represented us and represented this town I'm extremely proud of the job that everyone has done with that starting right from the screening committee and and forwarding originally four names but um ultimately three names there were good strengths and qualities about each of the three I believe we had a lot of positive feedback phone calls emails speaking getting stopped in in the mall or Supermarket or wherever we may be but I I do at the end of the day agree with Dr Jenkins that I think in my opinion that this does come down to two two candidates and so with that there's this is a tough one because I I see a lot of positives and strengths among each of them and thank you for all the feedback and it was split I do agree it
021was split right down the middle um I I've done my research I've I've done all the follow-through and I'm I'm really torn right now I I you know I think each of them could lead this District into the future um and be the person to represent us and I think we can each of them would get there in their own way I'll leave it at that right now oh that's fine I'll reserve my seat my speaking and let someone else Kathleen I I really don't have much different you know thoughts to share I agree that I feel that um between the two and um you know kind of going into it admittedly I I was I had a a bias leaning toward Dr Stephen McGuire um you know I was trying to remember okay that's
022because you sat in on the visit you know I try to like separate myself and forget who they are but and try to be as Fair as possible but I felt that um you know she did have some a lot of great strengths I loved the way that her colleagues spoke about the incredible support that she's been to to them over the years um and and I and I liked how she spoke about you know looking through that teacher lens that on the ground boots on the ground I also though after the interviews and again getting the feedback which was helpful but yet not helpful because it was split down the middle and you know you read an email or you read a comment from the survey as to why one over the other and
023they were all very similar and um Dr Girardi what I did appreciate about him in the interview was the way in which he was shared stories and um had a strong emphasis in his interview about his compassionate leadership and about you know family and health and wellness first of his staff and I thought that that is certainly something that our district can benefit from having that kind of leadership um and so I don't know that I want to say I'm leaning towards Dr Girardi because I do feel that I um I think it's a it's it's a good position to feel that you know no I I it's not good to be indecisive but the two candidates as CR to Chris's Point um could lead this district and I feel that the surveys told us
024that others felt similarly that they it's it's about the two of them they're the the overarching top two strong choices so one or the other I I don't know that I would you know not support uh you know perhaps I'll make a motion in a minute but no um but I wouldn't necessarily not support emotion I don't feel that yeah they both have good good skills so I'll just leave it at that without rambling thank you Mary yeah so you know of course you know I feel also it's down the two candidates and uh you know I was part of Dr Arty's virtual site visit at that point I was you know very impressed by the way that his staff spoke about him coming specifically down into their offices rather than you know they had
025to approach him um are you going to listen to a parent who said you know she disagreed with the results of a conversation she had involving her daughter with Mr Girardi But ultimately she felt listened to and you know and she she thought the process was very again like transparent and fair um you know teachers and staff spoke about his you know again compassionate leadership and that stuck with me coming out of Monday's interview I think it was clear that Dr Saban McGuire was the standout you know and I really thought and agreed with all of your observations about the fact that you know she was very focused she had the very specific examples to explain like initiatives she took in and brought in and for good or for bad and how she she was
026a listener a productive member of a team creating a coalition to move forward I still think after you know watching both candidates Dr gerardi on stage I am leaning to Dr gerardi um I think that his the diversity of his experiences in different districts will serve us well that is one thing I noted when we got some feedback and again it was really I think we'll be in great hands with Dr C McGuire if we go that direction but I do think it's helpful to have someone who has such a different lens of projects that they've LED in different towns you know I know you know we're looking for you know I'm not Ford we are probably anticipating some serious building projects He has that experience he also notably LED Moon socket through a budget
027crisis and again that's certainly something that we're going to be dealing with as well I knew that there were some concerns around the new confidence vote and I did investigate that you know it seemed to be among like Asbestos and some other issues you know I will say like you know reading into that a little bit more and maybe you know my colleagues here have some more insight on that it seems to me that those were tests that you know he did not have the that full information hadn't been put out there for him either so he was you know trying to make the best decisions he was given the information that he had um but again I'm certainly open to what my colleagues have found out about that that was the one hitch and
028you know as I went through my decision making I do think that he'll be a strong leader who is able to bring people together and I'm hoping that he can convey and I got the sense that he will be able to go into the community and convey our needs and be a real marketer for for the town and you know our financial challenges ahead and so we really need someone who's going to be forward-facing I've also been impressed as I went through by every single person in every District talked about his tremendous work ethic his kindness and his willingness to go you know really out in the district staying Friday nights late at Block Island to get to games that parents didn't even go to so there were a lot of different things but again
029I want to step back and say I also think Dr Steven McGuire will be excellent as well I just you know given the wealth of information having to make a decision between the two I just would lean towards Dr gerardi that's thank you Mary I kind of agree with I I agree with my colleagues we've got I think uh two out of the three in loving be clear I appreciate the fact that the search committee brought four candidates they were all good there's there's no doubt about that type of type of deal uh one withdrew after the site visit and that's that person's uh prerogative type of deal but you know the other three candidates did uh did Shine uh their visits three of two of the three because you I did not do Brockton
030uh which was by zoom and snow was was the one I did not do but it listened you know we've got two good candidates I agree either one of them is going to be perfect that is going to be good for this District I have my thoughts you know who who it should be and who I'm leaning to towards and you know again yeah I agree Shannon Chris it's 50 50 split with the surveys and and everything else so and thank you to everyone who participated you know but as I've also said to my colleagues a number of times this comes down to our decision and such so that's where we are and that's where we where we go so okay so that being said well Dr James so you know Miss Lee brought up
031and and I do while the issue of the no confidence vote was about building facilities um I do have some really deep concerns about that this wasn't like a close vote where maybe right I just ran the numbers again 95 percent of the staff voted no confidence 72.5 percent of those of the total number of teachers voted no confidence 87 percent of the teachers that voted voted no confidence and it was primarily about building conditions but it was also about transparency trust and communication and that worries me a little bit um I don't know it's like the risk reward right I feel like both of the candidates are very good and be good in that no confidence makes me a little bit more concerned about the potential risk and I don't know how to interpret
032that uh interesting listening to Mary talk about the the difficulties moving forward the budget I I do have to I feel that um in reading the comments and then speaking to some folks I feel that Dr Saba McGuire and again okay here I am talking about my having been in the home visit and having the luxury of feeling like I know her a little bit more in her home visit what folks talked about and then she met with us at the end of the day as well via Zoom and I don't think she really let it all out there at her interview but what she spoke about that was impactful to me is that she always leads with her why so she gets the buy-in she finds she she wants to to build that you
033know the that team process she um when talking about transitioning from a level five to a level one school somebody made a comment about the teachers and she said it's never about the teachers it's the same teachers that were teaching when we were level five that are teaching that it when it was transformed within throughout her leadership and so she said you know it's never about the teachers she's always thinking about how you know what it's like in the classroom and and and and then her reasons for for coming to Dartmouth she feels that having had the vast sort of um responsibilities in her role in Brockton coming to a smaller District like Dartmouth she feel feels that something that she looks forward to is what she said so that she can spend more time
034in the buildings and um in a way I I can imagine the responsibility of such a large district and coming to ours that it would be something to look forward to to be have more time with that relationship building so I just felt like I wanted to also I'm sorry I went on a little tangent the why and then the why and then having that deep why um and being able to get buy-in because she's so passionate about selling whatever it is that she needs for the school so she did talk a lot about that in the in the visit and she really didn't represent herself that way in the um in the interview which was unfortunate but um so I put that out there to confuse y'all a little bit more Chris did you
035have your hand I did yeah okay sorry no no that's all right so we have two candidates here we have one uh June Dr saber Maguire comes to us with 29 years of experience in an urban School setting She interviewed extremely well I felt on both occasions it sounds like the site visits went very well we've gotten positive feedback from her I mean I'm sorry we've gotten positive feedback from our staff about her um she seems as though she has a vision in her head of where the future of Education needs to go or where she would like to take Dartmouth it is a little concerning that all have her 29 years is in Brockton um with that we also on the flip side of this I think I kind of alluded to previously when
036I was talking that both candidates I feel could take this District to the next level in different ways it's all about in my opinion it's all about relationships in building your team up being visible getting buy-in from our staff members our parents our stakeholders the town hall certainly important to have a good relationship with them at the end of the day I think this comes down to who is going to be able to Embrace Dartmouth and gain the respect and understanding of our staff because let's face it you know when I first came on 10 years ago Dartmouth was in this school system was in a much different spot it's why I got on this committee and I just want to make sure that whoever we get can earn the trust of not only the
037school committee but our of our Educators our faculty and staff that leads me to Dr Girardi in which sure I I certainly agree with Dr Jenkins concerns around the vote of no confidence I will say that being an education myself and seeing a lot of moving parts and with the multi-hazard plan which uh the the asbestos plan is certainly it's concerning the the article this is just one example this is one article we all know how the news sometimes can skew spin or or skew people's perceptions I did like the public interview with Mr with Dr Girardi his is wamped and a personality that's not to say that Dr Stephen McGuire um you know would was different in her interview but I just I felt as though that came out a little more in the
038public interview and in hearing some of the the comments from staff like I said I think both of these candidates can take us to the next level it comes back to though in my opinion that we need to make sure that we're looking at how can we build a cohesion how is this person going to take our our building blocks which is our central office team our building principles our Educators teaching assistants our support staff and and build them up which one of these candidates are going to do that everything yeah I think the challenges I think they both will and again to your point in different ways you know I I mean I again like it's I think the numbers that Shannon you know put out there Dr Jenkins excuse me put out there
039regarding the new confidence vote I think that is that is concerning because it is you know even if we can say like an article excuse I mean those numbers are the numbers of folks so I mean again that's hard I mean I that is my one hitching point you know along otherwise I think for me it would be definitely Dr gerardi but it's one of the reasons I want to talk about that um I agree with you I thought his warmth was conveyed but there's no doubt that Dr David McGuire is a huge Champion for her staff I mean that was something that you know was conveyed during the course of her interview and again in all the exits from those folks who attended that you know interview on Zoom so I don't you know
040again I'm stuff and it's I'm torn again I would lean towards Dr Girardi still but I that is you know I I could go either way because I that is something for me that is in concern and we are going to be asking him to run a large likely some large building projects so I've since the interview night and you know I've done the research on there must have been an article someplace that somebody forwarded to you because I never saw that one on the uh the no confidence vote type of deal which is fine I'm good but I've have leaned in even with the research I've done and calls that I've made I have leaned towards Dr saber Maguire and such I think she's the person that will lead this District stable is one
041thing that comes to mind you know the 29 years in the district you know moving through the ranks type of deal whether you know from you know teacher and administrator and now you know yes she's only been in that position a couple of years but still it's you know a new position that was created so that's why she's new at it so I you know with Dr gerardi you know yes like I said you know yeah we've got two good two two people that we've got to talk about but my leaning is in all services to Dr saber Maguire but again Shannon well yeah maybe hell is Raising over I'm just kidding because we're in agreement oh my God I'm just kidding usually when there's a splits and I are not on the same side
042but we are I agree with you Mr noons and I'm going to reference I'm gonna go back to the site visits the summaries that Mr Kylie sent to me us all of us and the site visit for Dr Saba McGuire was long long list of positives very very very positive things with very little in terms of areas of concern for the people who did the site visit conversely for Dr Girardi the strengths were a little smaller in the areas of concerns were larger in part because we were interviewing in a district where you know he's only part-time he's only been there you know and that was one of the things like I wish we could have heard we could have done a site visit or you know something there but there's it's not just about
043that in the areas of concern from the people who went on the site visit so again joking aside sorry Mr noon but um I I think I would agree with you that that's the way that I'm leaning Kathleen can I just ask a question that we probably don't know the answer to but as we sit here at this moment do we know of any pending offers because we do we do but nut offers but decisions decisions doc Dr saber Maguire is a finals in Hudson and according to the town website the school committee is supposed to be meeting at seven o'clock tonight to make their decision oh Chief good thing we're out of schedule yeah which is kind of one of the reasons I was hoping we would to move this up but seriously you
044know I do not know about Dr I'll do Dr gerardi and Dr schwam I know nothing to be honest doctor and let's do the Kylie do you know of any besides that no okay thank you Mary so just you know reflecting on this it seems that there are you know there is a concern about Dr gerardi at least in the no confidence whereas we don't have any you know everything is more or less positive with Dr Seaman McGuire so you know again if we're going to you know go through the the process it sounds that you know I mean I'd be fine with that like leaning towards Dr Stephen McGuire for that reason again I not just that reason I mean obviously she's an incredibly talented person but I can you know looking at this
045from that lens in terms of like Coalition building around stakeholders I mean that is a piece of it okay um I'm sorry I'm trying to listen to her and I didn't see you I'm sorry Chris yeah I I I appreciate you my colleagues comments and for me coming into this evening I I was completely open-minded I wanted to hear everyone else's I did too I did too me too I I think it was important um and I am comfortably sold therefore I would like to make a motion that the Dartmouth school committee appoint Dr June Sable McGuire as the next superintendent of schools pending contract negotiations second okay moved by Chris second by Kathleen on the motion any other discussion hearing none go ahead nope I was going to interject a joke that's not really
046funny so I was trying to get onto the website to see what Hudson pays per pupil but um that was a bad joke and that wasn't a joke but yeah I'm making it a bad joke now but anyway all right no my website wasn't working computers are wonderful when they work yes okay any other comments or questions all in favor aye aye opposed motion carries unanimously so it is the unanimous opinion of the diamond school committee to appoint Dr June saber Maguire of uh the assistant superintendent one of the assistant superintendents at the city of Brockton as our next superintendent of schools pending contract negotiations at this point in time I'm going to take a recess Chris Shannon one of you I've got contact information for Dr McGuire if you want to go out and
047make a phone call and let her know I will do okay all right the committee will be in recess we'll be back as soon as we can thank you [Applause] you know that's right thank you very much welcome we are back in Open session it is uh 6 29 according to my wonderful watch that doesn't work all the time Mr Oliver so I contacted uh Dr saber Maguire and she and she graciously accepted the position that mean contract negotiation yes [Applause] she said she was very excited to start our work together and she's looking forward to the next steps beautiful good good thank you and again in all services my thanks to everyone that had a hand in this okay so yeah okay we are still a little bit ahead of schedule only because of
048uh budget hearing and the time the time that we have on that so uh we're going to kind of a couple 6 35 so five minutes we've got five minutes so give or take and again if we started at 6 39 it doesn't you know certainly but you can't start early you can that's right so um one of the things that I asked uh Mr Kiley to put on the agenda uh was for a reserve fund from the town's Reserve fund to cover the cost of the superintendent search we've done this before we did it when we hired Dr Gifford just because of the timing of that it wasn't an item that we had budgeted for type of deal on so uh you know to to make this transfer and to pay this bill it's
049got to be it's got to come from a line item someplace different you know affecting you know student services or wherever wherever it it comes from so what I would like uh uh to do is to uh get the paperwork you miss the guy that get the paper work from town hall and fill out a request for a reserve fund transfer which is uh to uh to cover the cost of the superintendent searched with uh masc and all the other incidental expenses that goes with it just so everyone is aware chapter 40 section 6 is uh Reserve funds for Extraordinary expenditures establishment and section 6 says to provide for extra extraordinary extraordinary and unforeseen expenditures a town May at an annual a special town meeting appropriate a transfer of some of Awesome's not exceeding the
050aggregate five percent of the levy of the fiscal year proceeding the fiscal year for which the fund to be known as The Reserve fund is established no direct drafts against this fund shall be made but transfers from the fund may be made from time to time to be voted by the finance or appropriation Committee of the town in towns having such a committee and in other towns by the Selectmen and the town accountant and towns having such an official or in other towns the auditor or Board of Auditors shall make such transfers accordingly so what this means is the finance there's an article at town meeting to fund the reserve fund for this which is extraordinary and unforeseen items and the finance committee has control of those funds and that's where we have to go
051with it so that's what I would like to do and yes this this is we did it with uh with Dr Jank uh Dr Gifford when we hired her yeah and that because that was the same year that we also had uh back-to-back storms over three or four weekends of like 10 or 12 inches apiece so I also went to them and said give us money for the snow the XD extraordinary snow removal and they just kind of looked at me and I went if this had been weekend storms with two inches that we could you know push off with a broom I wouldn't be here but we've had to hire equipment and extra salt and every you know additional overtime charges so that was the logic I used with that also so so we
052we good with that okay Mr Kyle if you get the paperwork I will committee want to vote on that want to vote on it yeah um if there was a request to reserve on transfer to um to cover the cost of the superintendent search a second moved by Dr Jenkins second by Ms Wade on the motion any discussion Mary uh Shannon I'm sorry I'll just know you know we're soon going to hear that we're not looking at you know a great budget year next year and we're going to have to move things like supplies potentially onto School of Choice so to the extent that we can I mean we do this that you must Dartmouth if you have some money left at the end you can pre-purchase supplies we can do that I'm hopeful that
053this Reserve fund transfer can help set us up a little bit for avoiding some of the pain of next year yeah so I think it's a good idea all right Automotion all in favor aye aye opposed motion carries unanimously boy is that good time right on the DOT all right so it is now 6 35 and I will open the budget hearing on the FY 20 proposed FY 24 school budget Mr Kylie we advertised the budget hearing appropriately and are prepared to hear any comments from the public on it thank you all right excuse me okay at this point in time anyone who has any comments on the budget for fy24 I will invite you to the podium I will ask that you do state your name for the record so that we have a
054record of it anyone okay last chance and I'm not trying to be not trying to push okay thank you we will close the public hearing penny so that takes care of that all right uh why don't we do this why don't you talk about the budget while we're on it okay okay it might take a few minutes that's fine okay we're good so um we appreciate um the fact that you know we've we've had some discussion about this this proposed budget and we're currently proposing a budget that has a 5.1 percent increase and we understand that that uh funding for that budget presents some challenges so I've provided you folks with some information uh an acknowledgment of those challenges um that would focus on reducing the FY 24 budget based on some attrition and other
055factors that we feel we can focus on that would still minimize the impact on students and I'll just talk a little bit about each one if you have any questions stop me anytime so the adjustments that we're proposing tonight are as follows we received a resignation for an instructional technology specialist you might recall that we had increased the district's instructional technology Specialists with Esser funds last year in a one-year position we've continued we decided it was worthwhile great value for the district and we continued that into year two which is this year for that position but we recognize that the Esser funds are coming to an end and given the fact that we have an opening right now it makes sense to address that in this in this fiscal year 24 budget so our proposal
056is to not fill that position for fiscal year 24. we also received a recent notification of a retirement for an instructional coach we are proposing not filling that position um so our plan is to make sure that all buildings have support but there clearly will not be the same level of support but we understand what we're facing ahead we have a vacancy and we feel like we need to address that right now so we would not fill that position and we would reallocate support we have one which I've never seen this in this District but we have one Elementary classroom teacher retirement our proposal is to look at class size and adjust class size in a lower class size grade that would fill that role so it's not that we're not going to replace that
057particular staff member in their role but overall in the district we would look at areas of very low class size and adjust accordingly we have the same situation with we already have a proposal for the preschool classroom teacher sorry Mary I'm so used to looking to the left I'm not used to looking down that side of the table but um so similarly we would propose that in an effort to um to reduce a request that we would look at class size as a way to to adjust and we feel we can do that with limited impact on on students the other the other issue that I think we need to you know we need to look at in some way and Dr Jenkins brought it up is to shift some supplies into the school choice
058budget we are proposing shifting fifty thousand dollars of supplies into the school choice budget at this point hopefully um you know that will make a difference it's not staff so there's not quite the same level of commitment although these are supplies that we need and we will need next year and we will need the year after that I mean we're not we're not the type of organization that has fifty thousand dollars worth of extra supplies it's not it doesn't exist so we do need to think about that long term but at this point we felt it necessary to do that so those reductions would result in a savings of 361 343 dollars so what was a 5.1 percent budget proposal is that would would um now be a 4.4 budget proposal again our attempt is
059to minimize the impact on students with these cuts 311. there's there's more to the story as to why we're bringing this forward and if you don't have questions about those specific Cuts I'd like to talk a little bit about that and then if you want to come back to it we can that's okay you want to wait for the end or that's up to you okay so I supplied with you I supplied you with some information regarding the town's budget projection um the town projection he has a 950 000 variance from where we are currently proposing at 5.1 percent nine hundred and fifty thousand dollars our revised proposals so if if we reduce that it would still be almost 590 thousand dollars more than what the town has projected for us um but from our
060perspective from the perspective I think of the administration our hope is that there could be some way that we could fund The Proposal at 4.4 percent any reductions Beyond this have a significant impact on students and we know we're facing going to face a difficult um you know difficult process with the fiscal year 25 budget so our hope is that we could gain some support for certainly first gain your support that's the critical part of this um and then uh and then move to gaining support elsewhere um to try and minimize the impact on kids questions Chris yeah I guess I'll start so the number I have here you said around 598th out and these are the numbers that the town has presented well the original 900 000 was what the town presented us with
061yes is that correct that's right was it was there an open dialogue and I assume there probably was because I know you're you know how you operate Mr Kylie um as to what the significance of these uh this difference would mean to um to the Dartmouth School System yeah I so I I had a meeting with the Town Administrator and the new Finance director for the town we had a discussion about this the feeling is that what was presented to me was a 3.1 ish percent budget increase for us um the the discussion was limited flexibility on the town side to fund anything beyond that so I at this point yes I I relayed the fact that what we're talking about is reductions in staff there's no you know where 80 percent Staffing so there
062you know there's no way to make up that money without without some further reductions and obviously we already knew we were going to be up against it in fiscal year at 25 so I was really hoping not to make these decisions this year um but at this point they understand that it would be Staffing it would be things like class size it would be um things like support staff administrative staff everything would have to be you know would have to be addressed so so I'm of the opinion that you know you certainly I support the reductions I'm just speaking on behalf of myself I certainly support the reductions that you proposed as much as I you know a huge advocate for technology I certainly understand the physical response physical responsibility and we're not these are
063positions these are not people at this time and I certainly support that and I would also support moving forward with the budget at the 4.4 I believe you said 1.4 percent and moving that forward to you know this is what this school department needs um we're already facing some significant struggles with learning loss and social emotional needs we're doing what we can we know Esther's dry it out so I would certainly support moving forward with that uh with that figure thank you Shannon so I agree with Mr Oliver you know I support moving forward with this I just have two questions one um so you know between the three and four we're sort of looking at moving things around um is that going to increase class sizes in some places or are we it is
064okay I just I want to make get that out there for the record to make that clear because we know how important having smaller classes is on student learning particularly at the elementary level so I just want to make that clear to everyone who's listening and watching yes it will have an impact we're trying to minimize that impact and look at the classes that where has the least where we can have the least impact okay the other sort of question comment I want to make so the instructional materials you said about 50 000 on to school choice how much do we get approximately each year 600 000 from school choice yes so my concern is I know we have to do that but I really feel like we're going to have to use school choice
065funds to ease us off the the Esser cliff and to the extent that we're now already committing school choice funds to other things it becomes even more difficult to to ease us off that Cliff you know we are doing I think as a as a school committee and a as a system trying to do what we can to provide some relief to the town I know that it's difficult um but it's just not a good idea to put recurring and this is not towards you this is to the general public to put recurring revenue or recurring expenses on a non-recurring revenue Source it's what we can do at this point in time but I'll remind people listening you know I think well John and I Mr Nunes and I were involved in the like 2006
066was it when you know um we hit I like to say we hit the Great Recession in Dartmouth before the Great Recession happened and part of it was because we had started to do that again I'm going to support this but I think it's important for the community to know that things are are getting a little a little desperate here and we need to we need more revenue or where it's going to start having a real negative impact on the quality of Education that our students get that's all definitely yeah I don't disagree with my colleagues and I um uh to Dr Jenkins took my question about the class size but uh I I do want to thank you for doing what you can to be thoughtful around um you know attempting to um compromise
067or show a good faith effort to meet them somewhere in in a way that has the least impact in the classroom aside from those class sizes but with appreciation to thinking about those smaller class sizes so I appreciate and and um you know I would support that for what you brought down to 4.4 percent but it's just incredibly frustrating the sounds like the lack of of open-minded flexibility of recognizing what an impact on a school district like Dartmouth um what this what their you know proposed hard line so it sounds the impact that'll have on on our community on our school district but also on our on our the larger community in terms of you know the implications of that on the education of kids so you know thank you for your attempts at meeting
068them somewhere that is not best for us but you know um just trying to be mindful and and fiscally responsible and and all of that but um like you said there's really no more that we can do and uh without having an incredible impact on on learning in the classroom yeah actually um you know and again this is why it's so critical that we have our new superintendent who can be front and center you know as part of this process to convey our needs and really you know Assist you know Mr Kiley and all of us and getting that message out to the town and the realities of it um I also think again like for our students to come home and and Dr and express like their concerns to their families who so they
069can really understand and Dr news I I know um you know we have a student rep here is there an opportunity for him to ask any questions is that appropriate within this permit would you like to ask any questions I have no questions but I appreciate the offer all right because again like this directly affects our students in the classroom so I you know and all of our staff so I just want to make sure you know I certainly agree with my colleagues and you know I appreciate thank you first of all of all your work and advocating for our kids and um you know it's it's it is I agree it's really frustrating to see this and I certainly don't want to see any further reductions but I think I understand your choices um
070one question over the last two years have our school choice students have that number been pretty static um are we you know because I I know that with Westport building a new high school we didn't have as many students from Westport were those seats Filled from other communities we yes we still have ample um applicants okay good good good okay well thank you okay um yeah thanks Jim I appreciate that I mean if you think about it 311 000 of this is direct student uh effect effective you know I mean yes it's you know every time and then the moving but in moving person all around type it there but it's not replacing the Personnel I mean you know after that you know as I've said many times that this is not you know if
071we've got to if we don't get this this is not cutting a box of paper clips or a ream of paper type of deal it's personnel and boy that really you know that that hurts an Ari type of deal uh I don't know I haven't seen the town budget yet I haven't they haven't they haven't given us anything you know so hopefully they will uh I know we've got a meeting Thursday night with the fincon yes I was going to mention that we've been invited to the finance committee they posted their agenda for Thursday night 5 30. 5 30 instead of 6 30. that's not good [Laughter] Kate would you do me [Music] would you post a meeting that we may be the school committee may be in attendance at that meeting just if anybody
072I'm going to be there out of anybody else that way what's that I thought I'll be there too yeah we I mean if we're there that type of deal okay okay all right um that being said I'm assuming if we all vote no on your budget request yeah I know it's your prerogative that that is I know uh seriously um much as I hate to I'll entertain a motion to uh go along with Mr Kylie's uh proposed FY 24 budget reduction in the amount of uh 343 dollars of which fifty thousand dollars of it is going to be school choice funds so we moved Kate with all due respect if you would have 50 000 in the minutes of its school choice ones thank you I got a motion by Mr Oliver motion by Mary
073motion by Mary I apologize Mary second by Mr Oliver on the motion any discussion chair hearing none all in favor aye aye opposed motion carries unanimously thank you Jim thank you okay anything else on the budget sir that is it okay Mr Martin we're good to go one down yeah can you get that right here deliberation right good evening everyone evening Lori that's Jordan evening and welcome and thank you for coming I know we're a little bit late I apologize running a couple of things and that type of deal so I apologize for that uh thank you for being here we have uh scheduled one hour uh for this interview type of deal so what I will basically do I think you know all of us but to keep things uniform I'll ask my committee
074members to introduce themselves to you sure Chris Oliver Shannon Jenkins Kathleen Amaral John noon's champ Barry White oyster so what we would like to do is kind of put this in three pots we've introduced ourselves we're going to give you an opportunity to make an opening statement we have some prepared questions for you type of deal and then at the end if there's some time and you want to make a closing statement and or I'd like to ask us questions more than welcome to great much thank you for the opportunity to be here tonight I'm thrilled um you know I come here with over 19 years in education experience uh the past seven here working as a special education administrator here and then prior to that working for 12 years in the Fall River Public
075Schools as a service provider as a counselor and you know definitely a service provider of special education students um I find that probably the most rewarding work that can be done is in special education it is wonderful to see students grow and thrive in ways that they never thought possible and that is to me one of the most rewarding things um I've been privileged over the past seven years to work with our out of District population which in in my mind is our most vulnerable students and our the ones with our most significant challenges um and I always put the needs of those students first while at the same time balancing the fiduciary responsibility that I have to the district but ultimately um not only in keeping the needs of the students first I also
076have formed relationships with parents as they've made some very challenging and difficult decisions regarding their education of their students at the school level I consider myself a good listener I'm an advocate for students I'm an advocate for staff and I there's no aspect of this job that I haven't touched and concerned in some way during a maternity leave that our current people support services administrator had I took over for her during that time which happened to be during covid times as well so that was not only challenging um in so many ways but I've I've spent my time in you know a supervisory role I've been in on hiring committees I formed relationships with community members and Community organizations that have continued to support our district I have been at the Forefront of compliance and
077Regulatory issues which is a major part of special education as well and I think one of my my biggest um one of the biggest things that I have loved about this job is working with The Talented staff that we have there isn't a day that goes by that I don't learn something from them and you know I think my my goal would be to continue to build capacity and Leadership possibilities within the district for for staff as well I'll leave it at that thank you we have a set of prepared questions for the candidates tonight you have a copy of them in front of you just for you to follow along and such in case you need to look back at it sure and such so what's that Mr Oliver thank you Mr news good
078evening good to see you I'll be starting off as you know the position of pupil Support Services administrator is multifaceted with the ideal candidate balancing many priorities in your opinion what is the most important aspect of the job you know I go back to a free appropriate public education um you know I think that that is the right of every student um within this District it's the right of every any student you know in special education and um I think everything is driven from that um you know in helping to find and support staff in supporting those students in making the best decisions regarding programming for those students in looking at uh fiscally how we can um align kind of our our philosophy about least restrictive environment in order to um you know to give
079students that free appropriate public education you know I I think of it in some ways it's about Equity it's it's about you know all kids having you know not only the right to a free appropriate public education but as much as possible to be able to provide that in the community that they live in um and you know obviously there are times where that unfortunately can't can't be done but for the most part I mean I think that's one of the biggest goals um for this position thank you hi I believe I have the next question am I scribe your leadership style and can you relate this style to specific examples of your leadership in action so you know I I think of it you know it it's it's multifaceted I think of it kind
080of in three different ways um you know I think that there are those decisions that um that need to be made that are um either regulatory or Personnel related that um you know are kind of the buck stops here and those are decisions that need to be made by the person in charge um and you know I think that the second way that um I lead and I think this is probably the way I like to lead the most um is being able to collaborate and and talk to and collaborate with staff and collaborate with others um that there are a lot of decisions that I would want input into and that's not to say that maybe in the end I wouldn't be making the decision um in making the decision that I feel is
081right but I also feel that that decision can't be made in isolation um and that there are people who have great ideas and great opinions about things that um we need to kind of value um you know I I think of that in terms of even some of the work that I've done um you know I'll hearken it back to covid um and um you know just communicating and making decisions particularly I supervise the nurses um and so you know one of the things that I really worked hard with is um a supporting them because they had a very difficult job during during covet but also listening to them and Gathering their feedback about um you know plans for um you know the way we were going to handle covered protocols the plan you know
082the way we were going to handle um testing all of that and I think that um you know that wasn't a decision I I I don't even pretend to be a nurse um and so um you know that was something that you know I needed and I wanted their input on um and so I would think that that's the second way that I lead um and the Third Way which you know I think is is you know the Democratic style for those types of things that you know when do we want to have the meeting on a Monday or a Wednesday um you know where you know we can you know that's kind of up for grabs um so I think you know those those are the three ways um that I lead um I
083would hope and want to lead um two and three more often and if I was leading you know uh the first way that I described um I don't think that's the most effective um you know I you know I think that there would be a problem you know with with a leader who solely chose just to lead from top down thank you for that okay my turn this is a position that will sometimes you will sometimes have to say no to a parent or student how would you explain that answer to the parent or student and as a follow-up could you give us an example of when you had to do that and what was the outcome you know I think you know as as a parent of two students with special education needs um
084you know I think that parents know their their students best um however I think that there are times that there there can be a disconnect with what we see here at school as opposed to what parents see at home um and you know there are times where a parent um has differing opinions on what a student needs um and I first and foremost you know I I'm an empathetic listener and I I value what parents have to say because I don't think um I certainly don't have all of the answers and I don't know their child's best but I also but I do know what's what a team says is best for a student educationally um and so I think you know first and foremost is I would look to the IEP team to see
085what exactly the IEP team feels is is the best that you know from their professional opinions um the best for for a particular student um you know I can think of you know a certain you know situation where um you know parents really you know really struggled with the idea that their student did not need Services anymore um and you know the the IEP team myself included um you know really had seen so much progress with this student and um and had so much data to support that progress and that was a tough conversation because I you know parents you know really um I can understand that struggle you know I can put myself in their situation I can understand the struggle but at the same time um you know particularly situations like that are
086times for celebration um that a student has you know reached their goals and you know got to a certain potential that um you know we all want for for our students educationally um but you know it it it's it's standing firm in in knowing that you are doing what is best for a student um you know regardless of um kind of that disconnect between what a parent wants and what what you know in fact is is the right decision um and and those are those are tough conversations um you know those are those are tough conversations to have because um you know for the most part you know I think parents and IEP teams work together but there are times where there is that kind of conflict um and it's the ability to kind of
087work through the conflict and put the needs of the Student First put you know Vape on the table uh free and appropriate public education and um be okay with making that decision for that student thank you I'm next hi Lori um so this question is two parts I'll start with the first part and then a little follow-up recognizing the various programs and special education models we currently have in Dartmouth please describe how the district can best support the unique needs of each so so when we when we think about um you know the Continuum of services that the district has you know obviously uh you know the first you know if we're looking at it from least restrictive to most restrictive we're looking at you know our co-taught models um and I um I firmly
088believe that we have some really good co-top models but I also think that teachers could also benefit from some support in in kind of strengthening those that model whether that's through professional development um because I do think you know that's our you know if you were to look at that that's our you know co-taught tier one kind of instructional model um and you know having that partnership between a special ed teacher and and a general ed teacher is so important um and it it's a dance between those two teachers um and you know sometimes I think you know I think that as as adults we can sometimes struggle with that just to know what our role is and I you know I firmly believe that that that is an area that we could strengthen um
089and then we look towards you know our our partial inclusion model that you know that we have um you know ins In Pockets um I think that's probably our biggest um challenge in the biggest area that I could see growth in um is those students who don't require most restrictive in a program kind of setting but also kind of struggle in that co-taught setting um you know really forming a more solidified model of what that looks like um because I think that we're seeing more and more students who are kind of that in between um that they they need more um and um having a consistent programming across elementary middle and high school that kind of supports that I think is really important um and then you know obviously we have you know a robust
090um and wonderful set of programs within the district um you know that I um that is challenging you know I think that we are seeing particularly since covid you know I the needs of the students have just magnified and increased um and I think that we continue to kind of modify and mold um programming for those students um you know I I think that um again could be an area of kind of that we take a look at that we look to see what is the best model in order to support those students um you know where you know maybe more service providers are working in the classroom rather than outside the classroom um but you know I think we do an excellent job of kind of meeting those those students needs and it's challenging
091for them thank you and you kind of you spoke a little bit about this but so for the follow-up could you now describe your vision for what an ideal knowing what you know right an ideal Continuum of services looks like in Dartmouth your vision so so again I you know I think you know always keeping kind of you know least restrictive environment in our mind um again I think it's strengthening co-teaching I think it's being creative about our model of um with programs but I I I think a good bulk of the work really needs to be that that in between um in how we support those students um kind of who have have different needs than than just a co-taught model or or you know a restrictive model um and while at the same
092time keeping students in District you know as much as we can um you know because they have a right to be here they have a right to um you know be in this environment and be in their Community I think that's one of the things that I'm so excited about our transition program that we are you know developing is that it's allowing students again kind of an a separate Continuum for your 18 to 22 population um where you are you know providing them opportunities to grow and learn new skills in pre-vocational and Vocational School skills and um transition skills for adulthood that um you know but within our district um as opposed to outside of our community thank you very much can I ask a follow-up doing follow-ups or yeah all right so you're going
093to have to ask yeah the same follow-up next time the same that's fine okay um let me just mark it here so as a follow-up you talk about the least restrictive environment and growing programs I'm certainly appreciative of that I've been chairs smack for now for eight nine years um and I I certainly have a good understanding not as much as my colleague Mrs Amaral of special education but I certainly do have a good understanding so in your opinion what is the Tipping Point where you say what the district can no longer support the needs of this to these students right because we we've had this this we've tried to grow programs in the past at Quinn for one example and it it wasn't as successful as we would have hoped so while I certainly
094appreciate the least restrictive environment keeping students in the district at what point for you is the Tipping Point all right we we need to reconvene the team we need to have conversations around maybe that keeping the student in District is is not the best outcome for that student yeah you know I think it's a process I think it's you know it's an individual um you know based on whatever the disability is um but I I think it is a um it's not a hasty process I think it's a process where we're constantly going back and reevaluating our practice um and saying okay let's try this you know let's meet for you know let's see how that works for six weeks seven weeks eight weeks and see what happens after that can we think of anything
095else um because you know I I I really think that kids have have the right to be here if they can um and while at the same time there does come to a point where um you know that might not be possible once once supports are tried and and tried in multiple ways and um you know multiple versions and um you know I'll give for I'll give I'll give an example um so you know if you have a student who is um you know has an emotional disability and you know is really struggling Within the classroom um one of the things that I had um started when I came to the district was um starting Clinical Services meetings and basically those meetings are a chance for our um our schools at the elementary level to
096really look at Behavior with a um with someone from the outside who can kind of take a take a an overview a purview of it and provide support and recommendations in addition to doing that um you know it's Carolyn mccurney from South Coast collaborative in addition to doing that one of the things that I thought was really important was not only um you know for her to come in and do some of that brain-based kind of recommendations but staff needed to be trained in what that meant and how they could Implement that in their classrooms and so over the course of three years professional development was offered for all Elementary staff so that all in Elementary staff was trained in those principles um and so I think when we're talking about a student who might
097have emotional challenges and behavior plans are tried at a school level um you know then then you know maybe we bring in a consultant and have the consultant also kind of come in and take a look and provide recommendations and then if that doesn't work maybe the consultant comes in again we really try to kind we really try to exhaust everything that we have in our toolbox before we kind of make the decision that you know maybe maybe right now for for now um you know this student kind of needs um supports that we don't have here thank you sorry we're sharing a microphone here today um I have the next question um and you know this the person that's going to be in this position um has a potentially big fiscal impact to the
098district both in terms of the cost of services we provide but the liability to the district we don't provide the services that our students need and deserve so can you talk about your your sort of fiscal experience your experience managing budgets and describe how you balance the need to provide exceptional education to all our students with special needs and the fiscal constraints of the district you know I I look at that in terms of you know you know everything I that I've done even with out of districts out of District tuitions are not cheap in really trying to balance um putting programming in place within the district to support students as much as we can prior to them um you know having to make a decision to potentially place them out of District um you're
099absolutely right I mean next to salaries and transportation special education has the uh has the the biggest budget um you know with the most expenditures and the most liability um and you know the reality is right now that there isn't a lot of money um you know we're dealing with the situation where you know we get pockets of money from you know three kind of Revenue sources our operational budget um are you know um entitlement Grant and then circuit breaker and you know that is it so I think one of the biggest challenges you know then becomes how do you know you constantly reevaluate and constantly um look at ways of reallocating what you do have um in ways that could enhance programming you know I think that is one of the things when I
100think of the transition program that was one of the things that we kind of talked about in terms of not only were we in a position in where we felt that students needs could be met here in District but at the same time it you know we're also talking about reallocating resources as well um and I think that that's one of the biggest things that in the biggest challenges that um you know not only you know in special education but across the board in education we're facing at this point in time thank you I have the next question how do you feel you can make a difference in educational outcomes if appointed to this position so I think I think my biggest um one of my biggest strengths is forming relationships um and whether that
101be relationships with um with staff with students with parents um and although you know special education is very individualistic in some ways because it's all about the individual individual needs of a student I'm a firm believer that you know it takes a team effort to um you know to increase outcomes for kids um and so I think there's a number of ways of doing that and you know when we look at at staff development I think that um that is extremely important in in good outcomes for kids um you know providing staff with a professional development opportunities that are differentiated based on where where teachers are what they're doing what population they're serving that it's not this one-size-fits-all type of um professional development I think that that's very important um I think that's definitely a
102way of increasing educational outcomes for kids because I think that you know we have such a talented group of Staff here and like I said before I learned so much from them on a daily basis um whether it you know they learn from each other and do some um peer kind of professional development um is just as important as bringing in someone from the outside you know and uh you know but I also think it needs to be relevant um and you know you need to to leave a professional development opportunity with stuff in your toolbox that it's not something that you know you go and it's so theoretical that you leave there and you feel like I I just wasted an hour or two hours of time um so I think that that's one
103of the big ways that we can kind of increase educational outcomes for kids thank you and as a follow-up what challenges do you anticipate or would you anticipate I think that's based on based on what I I just said about what I think would help I think probably the biggest challenge would be to juggle the differentiation of PD um because I think that you know I don't think it would be a staffing challenge I think people are eager to learn you know I mean that's why we're in this business in some ways is you know not only to be teachers but also to be lifelong Learners um and you know I think people are eager to kind of find ways of supporting kids and and and improving outcomes for kids so I think it would
104it's more a matter of finding the targeted relevant professional development um that could meet the needs of some vast and varied groups so I think that would be it thank you um so my question actually delves a little deeper into what Mr Oliver had just asked and I know you've spoken a bit about um you know adding Clinical Services piece differentiated professional development so you know just to kind of expand upon that and again dig a Little Deeper when making important decisions regarding curriculum resources and professional development take us through your process from start to finish including steps you would take to ensure district-wide implementation first and foremost is getting getting a group of people together and getting more heads together to kind of look at what what the needs are I am not you
105know someone who thinks that I know it all and know what the needs of of everyone are in my thoughts might be totally different and separate it in a part than what those people are that are doing the work and so I think that that would be that would be my first step in the process um would would really be to look at um you know and to talk to people um you know one of the things that um I think is is really important is you know to have you know I'm you know I'm I'm a counselor you know by by trade you know from years ago and you know one of the things that um you know relationships matter to me I want to hear what's happening with staff I want to hear
106um what their needs are and you know can I do it all can I you know no I you know I I can't you know make money fall from the trees but can I be creative about ways to support Staffing um and support um teachers I think that that's um you know really meeting with with people is would be my first step um and then once once the needs are kind of put out there it's it's to think creatively you know could there be um you know could there be competitive grants out there that I could apply for um that could help support some of that professional development um you know I also you know have formed some really good relationships with our area collaboratives who offer professional development as well at you know reduced
107costs for member districts um so it would be really working with them as well to help support our our teachers in that way and um you know I I think the last piece in that is that I would want I'd want feedback after the after the professional development to know whether or not what we did was effective and if it wasn't what wasn't effective about it and how can we make it better for the next time okay thank you so back to me for the final I think of our all our questions um please share how you would ensure effective communication with families and other stakeholders so you know I I think that one of the the key things with with communication whether it's with with parents or with staff is responsiveness and not being
108afraid to pick up the phone and call someone if they have a concern um you know not be you know making sure that I respond quickly you know I'm someone who you know is up you know late at night answering emails because I don't want I know from the other side as a parent what it's like to kind of wait for you know a response from an email and and knowing um you know that that can make the difference in in terms of how a um you know how a relationship can go um I think that um you know one of my goals for for families you know I have to say we've got um a new IEP Forum that's coming out it was just rolled out last Friday through the state and one of
109the things about the IEP Forum that I love is that it is very um relationship oriented you know it it really um it asks it it makes the team be very thoughtful in their decision making while also giving parents so much more of a voice um in in the process and I think that um you know that whole piece is also another way that we can effectively communicate um is you know having vehicles like that um you know I um the other piece of communication which I think is really important is just being present um and being approachable and being someone who you know is in the schools and not afraid to you know to to talk with people and um find out you know how things are going you know the good the bad
110the ugly um and uh you know I think that that is extremely important um you know and not afraid to you know meet with parents um and you know hear their stories um and you know what they they feel um are important factors um in their own students lives in you know their educational lives thank you Mr Jordan that concludes all our questions if you'd like to finish up with a statement that's fine if you have questions for us that's okay too so I'll give some closing remarks but then I have a question as well um so you know first and foremost I want to thank all of you for the opportunity um to meet uh with me tonight you know I I feel like when I um when I find a district that I
111feel I can do good work in I Stay and I feel that this is a district that I can continue to do good work in um I feel like this department is poised at this point to um not only continue some of the good work that is happening but also to enhance it and make it even better um you know I you know would love the opportunity um you know to to lead this department um and and grow it and you know make a difference so thank you and my last question is actually a question that I asked the screening committee when my last question with them and you know I I'd like to pose it to you for any of you that is willing to answer and um my question is you know based
112on um you know what you hear from your constituents what um do you think is the um biggest priority or priorities for the the new pupil Support Services administrator sure so for me um and you know certainly being out in the community and being a school Committee Member uh priorities that I'm that I would like to see is certainly a the growing of in-district programs that are thoughtful uh communicated well to all stakeholder all stakeholders involved um in done in a fashion that is sustainable in addition to that I think that someone the next leader of the um the pupil Services administrator position it's a mouthful it is a mouthful needs to have is the person needs to be visible used to be visible in the schools visible to our staff they need to listen
113and um for feedback and and grow the team even stronger than what we have today yeah okay I'll go uh I'm looking for someone that and I'm just writing notes down because someone that's going to keep at the department growing in in such I mean with the population and the students has you know the students best interest uh in hand personally I'm excited about the atlas program what's going to happen with those you know 18 to 22 year olds and keeping them in-house and giving them that opportunity I'm looking for someone who's going to be transparent and you know fourth width right wrong or indifferent type of deal and someone that's going to be very collaborative and has to have a good rapport also is going to have to have a good rapport that person
114is going to learn in a hurry [Music] just appointed subject contact negotiations the new superintendent tonight so we've got a new superintendent coming on board so the person is going to have to you know everybody's going to have to be working together you know with Mr Kylie and central office staff and the building administrators and such so the person you know the new part of my sped director and I mean it's easier is uh is going to have a you know their hands full the first couple of months so that's what I'm looking for yeah I'll I'll go go ahead yeah um and so uh you know I I have the unique perspective that um I could speak to my my personal sort of thoughts but then you you meant you did say constituency so
115we'll go with that um Mr Oliver did say a few just I think someone who's visible a team Builder um not afraid to have those comp hard conversations supportive of staff um in someone who um you know in terms of the programs that we have really the assistant Christoph Oliver used the word sustainable but I would say like a maybe a stronger infrastructure um and then you know maybe some just the team building and the the being visible to kind of know how things are going on the ground um and forth to build that trust with with staff that when you're not there they know you are there or at least you have them in mind I think is important because you have a reputation of being visible and and um communicative so nothing out
116of the range of what either of my two folks said but yeah and I'll just you know I'll just add you know someone who has you know a deep understanding and empathy for our families and and you know at all the levels of you know we know that children have been going through so much um you know and families we're faced with you know we've heard many stories of unique challenges not being able to get Services during coven so someone that again that warmth and approachability and uh and and again echoing again someone that parents stuff um you know can can look to as a true leader who tend to be that again to be visible and and open and in all the buildings and with our students so great well thank you Dr Jenkins
117all right so since everyone else I will just bill though you know I agree with everything my colleague said but I will you know you asked about what you hear from constituencies and um building on what Miss Wade said um you know there's a real concern about the influx of need from the pandemic um and and how we're going to be able to manage that because there's going to be a lot more children who need Services because of that and unfortunately the resources are going away next year so how do we do that right how do we manage that it's going to take a lot of leadership to figure out how to meet the real needs and from what I hear in the community I see it in my work people see it in their
118lives these kids I say needy not in a bad way I say it because they've been through a lot absolutely and how are how are we gonna how are we going to manage that is I'm going to take some leadership and some vision for the district and so that's important I think to people in the community but also to me I agree all right great well thank you all very much again for the opportunity thank you Lori thank you okay um well I paraphrased the more you know yeah yeah that's fine the other blank I got it you got it thank you all right bless you [Laughter] oh and for those of you that are at home and watching we are just waiting for our other candidate to arrive no problem we're right back on
119time huh and become yourself yes thank you hi everybody hi Lori how are you great thanks for the visual [Music] okay welcome and thank you for being here uh we'll start I'm not sure if you know everyone but we'll start whatever you know the committee members will introduce themselves Chris Oliver Shannon Jenkins Kathleen Amaral John Nunes I'm the chairman Mary Waite Lori denisio Laurie the interview tonight consists of three pots first and foremost we're going to give you an opportunity to make an opening statement if you'd like then we have a series of prepared questions for you we've provided you with a copy so that you have an opportunity to look back to them as they're being read or as you're answering so that you're good to go and also at the end give you
120an opportunity to make a closing statement if you like and you know if you'd like to ask us any questions you're you know more than welcome to we have uh allocated one hour for the interview so with that the floor is yours ma'am so as I said my name is Lori denisio um this is my 19th year in public education 17 of those years have been here in Dartmouth 15 of those years as a speech language pathologist and the last two as a team facilitator at Quinn I am also a resident and the parent of two students in the system a fifth grader at Potter and a seventh grader at the middle school as my career progressed I started to become interested in the larger scope of special education outside of my therapy room at
121Potter School that looked like being part of the PBIS coaching experience when that initiative first ruled out in the district many years ago a lot of work with RTI and reading intervention planning I provided professional development for our kindergarten and first grade teachers around phonological awareness and early reading skills when I transitioned to Quinn the scope of that work changed quite a bit I've been involved in developing District protocol and procedures around recommending certain evaluations as well as when and how to recommend a one-to-one paraprofessional for students creating visuals to help make team meetings more interactive and parent friendly and developing and facilitating uh professional development strand that we do on early release days primarily focused on our substantially separate programs in order to really look at what we're doing with those students in order
122to really make some changes um you may look at my resume and say well she's never been an administrator and you will be right I have never been an administrator but for many years I have been a leader in this department and I'm here tonight because I believe that is what we need at this time collaborative human centered present leadership in order to make the necessary changes in the special education department here in Dartmouth Mr Oliver thank you Mr chair I'll kick off the the questions here as you know the position of pupil Support Services administrator is multifaceted with the ideal candidate balancing many priorities in your opinion what is the most important aspect of the job that is such a hard question because every aspect is so important but I have to go with
123and I feel like I'm stealing something but that sense of belonging so we talk about sense of belonging for students um but I believe we need a sense of belonging for staff and when you talk about special education we tend to like use a broad brush so we have regular writing special ed we have classroom teachers and non-classroom teachers and in the reality of schools these days is that the positions are far more nuanced than that and um we all of those staff members need to have a sense of belonging they need to see their place at the table um so that means what that means planning for them that means thinking about them that means understanding their role and their job and how they contribute to the team so when you're providing professional development
124you're actually working towards the needs of this staff which will translate into improving outcomes for students because then you're improving the education for students um I also think that means knowing your staff right like this is a big district there are 630-something IEPs so at Quinn my rule for myself is I will not walk into a team meeting without knowing that kid whether that means I go in the classroom for 10 minutes or talk to the teacher I need to know who that student is and while that might be um a big ask for for a sped director uh I do think that that level of relationship building and sense of belonging is super important to make sure that we are retaining the staff that we have thank you so I have the next question
125and my question is how would you describe your leadership style and can you relate the style to specific examples of your leadership in action yeah um I do believe that again I use I use these sort of generic terms collaborative human centered because I believe that people are the most important part of the job but also the word facilitator so that's my job at Quinn right I'm a facilitator and I do believe that that's my leadership style as well I help to facilitate change I am not I do not have all the answers I am nobody's Guru but what I do is remove barriers create containers so that the staff can work together to sort of bring their expertise to the table at Quinn that has looked like again this professional development strand that we
126started and I propose that because we have all these conversations all the time about things we want to change um but we never have time to do them so I propose this trend so that we had time to talk about them so that we could make changes and Implement them strategically one of those changes has been uh a dedicated consultation time so from three o'clock to 3 30 um our substantially separate program teacher and the related service staff that works with that classroom sit down every day and talk about kids this didn't cost a dollar all it took was some kind administrators who are willing to help with this missile um and what we're seeing from that is amazing conversation that is actually impacting students um so when I say I facilitate again that was
127I don't even know whose idea it was it was not my idea but all I had to do was sort of put it together make it happen and that's how the changes occur and again I just think that the people are the most important part of this job um so that needs to be the priority in leadership thank you this one's mine this is a position that you will sometimes have to say no to a parent or student how would you explain that answer to a parent or a student and then I've got a follow-up for you um so recently I've had lots of practice with this um it occurred to me when I took this job last year on my current position last year that I was not the good guy anymore as a
128speech therapist you're always the good guy you're helping the kid communicate and there's nothing better than that as a team facilitator that's not always the case I'm having difficult conversations with parents about why we're changing Services what things are looking like why progress isn't happening struggles that might be happening in school that are new and that's tricky um I think the conversation of the services on the IEP is probably the the trickiest right so a student gets 10 hours of ABA a week and we want to change it to eight and a half hours of ABA a week and some parents will struggle with that decision so it really has to be a back and forth conversation about the data that we're using to drive the decision and why because it's our job to provide
129the least restrictive environment in which the student can make effective progress so that in order to have those conversations you need to have trust those parents need to trust the team that is working with their child that they have their the child's best interest in heart at heart not that they're always going to get what they want not that their services are always going to stay stay the same but trust that um what we are recommending is what's best for the child and that comes again with building relationships we need to build relationships with these families so the us against them whether that's School versus families or Bush Street versus schools that doesn't work we all need to be on the same page rowing in the same direction and and have the families understand that
130we're doing what's best for their kid that trust is so important so many conversations around that um usually involved in a partial rejection of an IEP in which case we sit back at the table and we talk about it and sometimes that's a compromise like okay we're gonna continue the service delivery until next day at which time we're going to reevaluate so compromise is one of the strategies sorry I'm jumping to your second question that's okay um and other times it's just having a conversation to explain a little bit more about our position about why we're recommending this one example is that recently um we had a team and the uh the student's parent wanted a one-to-one for their child so we wrote a statement that reflected that um but our idea was to use
131already existing program staff to support that student rather than hiring someone else the mother rejected it we sat down and we sort of re-explained our thinking because she was coming from a place where she thought we weren't giving it to the student because we're trying to save money but in reality our idea was we have staff that is trained that is on board that knows this child this will be a better fit and once she knew that once she knew it wasn't about money or it wasn't about um taking anything away then she got on board again she said as most parents do we're going to see how this works and if it doesn't work we're going to come back to the table and that's really what this process is you got to use your
132data to make your decisions um but at the same time you always have that ability to sort of go back and revisit those decisions you answered the follow-up so thank you so I have a question that does have a follow-up and I believe my colleague colleague Mr Oliver will have a follow-up to the follow-up to be consistent across the board um so recognizing the various programs and special education models that we currently have in Dartmouth please describe how the district can best support the unique needs of each so I believe in individualizing IEPs that's what the I is for and I think sometimes when we sit down to write an IEP it becomes a little bit of muscle memory so the student has a weakness in Reading we're going to give them 5x30 in the
133B grid and 5x30 in the C Grid in order to work on their phonics skills um I prefer a more reflective approach what are these students strengths what are these students weaknesses what is the specially designed instruction the student actually needs in order to make effective progress and that I'm actually hoping the new IEP sort of breaks those habits for us because we will have no muscle memory for that and we will have to be very reflective and so I I do think that that reflective practice that thinking about that student in front of you what the expectations are and how you're going to support them to meet those expectations I also believe a thousand percent in collaboration um collaboration between related service providers classroom teachers special educators my least favorite thing is to look
134at an IEP and see a goal that's repeated three times in three different ways the SLP has a goal for uh answering questions the sped teacher has a goal for answering questions we only need one goal for answering questions everyone just needs to work on it um so that is one of the things that we're working on in this professional development strand how do we write how do we measure how do we attack um collaborative goal writing so I think the best way to meet the unique needs of a student is to provide them the services they need in a reflective way and to collaborate with the rest of the team so now could you describe as a follow-up could you describe your vision for what an ideal Continuum of services would look like in
135Dartmouth oh gosh so flexibility I I again we get so stuck with it's always been this way or I've always done it this way um and I I don't think that's going to move us forward I think we need to be flexible thinkers about what our students need uh I am lucky enough in my job to get to go to different schools and see different kids and consult on them and tell them what I think about what's happening um and that's amazing other special Educators don't get to do that and I think they need to I think we need to see each other's classrooms a child at Demello with a reading Disability should not be getting different Services than a child at Potter with a reading disability We Are One District so I think while
136we need to um I individualize the IEP we also need to make sure that we're on the same page as a district with the services we are providing and I I do think we get there by visiting each other by talking by making use of um our our staff meetings in order to sort of shore up some of those services and I will also say that it is a Continuum right like that's what the grid is for so it can't all be this or I'll be that I think it really neat we need to have that flexibility perhaps a student has a real significant weakness in math but in Reading they are they are you know just a little below grade level so that should be reflected in the IEP perhaps the services are more
137restrictive for the math and in the ELA less that might mean there are two sped teachers working with them that can get messy but I do think coming back to the table and having those conversations with that flexibility in mind and individualizing each IEP is how we get there and I think it's just a constant conversation my vision would just be really thinking about it and and being reflective and being proactive about our decision making thank you and I'm gonna turn it over to my colleague who has a follow-up to that follow-up so as a follow-up in as we're looking at pleasing students in the least restrictive environment and that's clearly most of the time it should be in District in your opinion what is the Tipping Point for when we need to go back
138to our reconvene the team speak to our related service providers our special education teachers in in the parents clearly as to what's the Tipping Point for consideration of an out-of-district placement my least favorite words to hear are this kid doesn't belong here and unfortunately that's that's where you get when the level of frustration is high and you feel like you've exhausted all of your tools and and nothing's working you're not making progress with this kid this kid doesn't belong here and I think we need to reframe that question as what services does this child need that we are not currently providing um so the Tipping Point is what have you done I and I do think we need to shore up our processes and procedures around this what if you have difficulty with a student
139in your class if the team isn't agreeing if we're not seeing progress um what's the process for that we don't have one everyone makes it up right so that's an issue um we we need we need a process for that I do think what we need to do is reach out in District so some some schools have had me come because I work at Quinn and that's where the programs are um to consult to say have you tried this have you tried that so I think using our in-district resources is our first stop we have a lot of brilliant people in this district and we need to leverage that Talent um and we're not right so I think we need to find ways to do that to to build capacity across our schools to deal
140with these more complicated cases so again the process would be reach out in District um have someone consult make a plan is it working you have to have steps and almost like a flowchart everything everyone loves the flow chart and special education in order to get to the point where you say I think we need to look elsewhere and really that the question is are we meeting the students needs and sometimes the answer is no um we are not and what does the student need that we don't have and I think that those are the questions that we need to um that we need to answer before we make those decisions thank you so I have the next question so the person in this position has a big fiscal responsibility in terms of you know
141the the district's budget both in terms of the cost of providing services but also the liability we're exposed to when we don't provide the services that students need um so can you talk about your experience in managing budgets and describe how you would balance the need to provide exceptional education to our students with special needs but also balance the physical constraints at the district basis yeah um my experience with budgets is limited um I so much of special education is fixed numbers right so we have tuitions we have to pay we have transportation we have to pay so a lot of the budget is eaten up by that so the the first part of it is are we you know um is our circuit breaker in line do we have extraordinary relief funds um available
142and then what's left and it can't be what's left let's see what we can do with the budget it needs to be what's left and where are the needs so again I think that proactive planning the looking at the data um in order to make budgetary decisions is most important but I think the budget is way more than the money right like so if you have a a parent who does not trust their team does not believe that they are providing adequate service for their child they might make decisions about placement um that negatively impact our budget so I think our budget needs to go back to are we building those relationships with families are we utilizing the talent um and the knowledge and the expertise in our district to provide adequate services for students
143are we building trust are we building relationships if you have that then there'll be less sort of damage on your budget when you when those um when those things come up again I go back to um we provide exceptional education by using the exceptional staff we have um and we need to think about how we spread that wealth across the district you know I'm not up next how do you feel you can make a difference in educational outcomes if appointed to this position and what challenges do you anticipate so I think making changes that directly impact students is what's going to make a difference with educational outcomes again I go back to that um free three to three Thirty consult time we have instituted at Quinn that has already in the two months that we
144have been doing it affected change for our students as far as Behavior plans as far as progress we're seeing as far as our ability to write and track collaborative goals so what can we learn from that and how can we spread that across the district obviously this is what's happening in one building but again this can be a model for for other things to come I also think that we can make an educational Difference by making sure that our staff is well trained um as you know the dyslexia legislation is on its way um through the state house and that's going to hold us accountable to an another level of providing for students and I think our staff needs to be ready for that and I think we have the resources within the district to
145make sure the staff is ready for that but again it's taking an honest look at where the strengths and weaknesses and how do we build on those weaknesses um in order to make necessary change the challenges that I anticipate and I say this in the most loving way are the people um uh I heard the term loving critic the other day and I thought oh I think that's what I am but I think that's what a lot of us are right we love this place otherwise we wouldn't be here um Dartmouth has its challenges and if you are still here you're here because you want to be you're here because you're committed you're here because this is your place um so listening to those loving critics and sort of taking all that information in and
146having those hard conversations and pushing back when necessary I think that that that's going to be the challenge but that's where the work is that's where the work is and I think you need to make room for that as a in in a when you're in a leadership position thank you um so I think like pulling upon a bit of what you've already told us about your leadership style and again you know some needs you see internally with professional development it says my question is when making important decisions regarding curriculum resources and the forested professional development take us through your process from start to finish including steps you would take to ensure District to provide implementation have you ever heard of implementation science it's a new thing okay so implementation science is this whole new
147field that's coming out because we have all this research about education and then we have education and they don't talk to each other right so this whole field of implementation science is now how do we Implement change how do we Implement curriculum how do we Implement professional development and there are four levels so the first level is well we told them to do it and level four is well it's become part of the culture so I think we can look at initiatives we've had in the district and map them along that uh that Continuum like PBIS is level four we own that but many many things are level one so if you want real change you cannot have level one implementation so how do you get there you get there through coaching you get there
148through um observation you get there from modeling so teachers are watching other teachers Implement and use um whatever you happen whatever curriculum you happen to be using that's how you get there and I think because we've done it successfully before we can do it again we know what it takes it's just work and it's commitment and the other part of implementation science is de-implementation so that's sort of when you say we're not worrying about that anymore because what happens is as a classroom teacher as a special education teacher you have all these things on your plate and you don't know that we're not worrying about this one anymore because we put this one on your plate so especially with new leadership coming in we need to say we're not focused on that anymore that is
149not a priority for us we are focused on whatever it is um so looking at implementation as are we looking at the research are we then putting the research to practice and are we really fostering that um across the spectrum is how I would answer that question excellent thank you so back to me for the final question um please share how you would ensure effective communication with families and other stakeholders um brene Brown says clear as kind so I think that communication needs to be clear it needs to be responsive um and sometimes it needs to be on the telephone um or on a zoom I think a lot can get lost in email especially when you're going back and forth with parents or staff about really sensitive issues and even though no one likes
150to do it I think sometimes it's important to pick up the phone and just talk about it um but again part of that communication is having those hard conversations it is challenging but I think that when you're in that space with a parent or a teacher um that you're coming to them and you're saying look this is the issue and you're having that clear communication that's that's when you solve problems that's when you you lessen the hurt feelings um people want to be heard they want to know that you heard them so I think acknowledging that is is super important and I think it also needs communication also needs to be timely so if you get an email and you're not sure how to respond because you have some digging to do I think it's
151okay to say I'll get back to you in two days I need to you know but again acknowledging that you receive that communication letting them know you're you're sort of thinking about it um I think can Stave off a lot of bad feelings about miscommunication thank you that concludes our questions and uh to you at this point uh give you an opportunity if you'd like to make a closing statement and or ask us any questions thank you um for your time you guys have invested so much time this month and making really important decisions and as a voter I say that hats off because you're you're putting in the work um so thank you for that uh microphones and talking about special education are two of my favorite things so you guys made some dreams
152come true tonight um and I don't mean to be cliche but it has truly been an honor just to be nominated the support I have received and the encouragement I have received from my colleagues um has been so humbling and it's that support that will continue to fuel my passion my passion to advocate for these kids and to work to make this department better um and I will continue to do that whether it's from Bush Street or Hawthorne Street or Crossroad or Dartmouth Street or Slocum Road uh because this is my place and these are my people and the students of this District deserve nothing less so thank you so much for all that you do thank you thank you thank you very much okay are we good do we want a couple of minutes
153to digest everything take a quick recess I would love that okay perfect all right we're going to be in recess for a few minutes and we'll be back thank you relax me too thank you we are back in Open session it is 8 22. and thank you everyone giving us a chance to collect our thoughts and such It's been a busy evening and still continues at this point in time on the agenda on all seriousness if I can find my agenda we have now is uh our discussion with uh for our uh pupil support service adminar administrator vote and announcement type of deal so at this point in time I'll turn it over to my colleagues and I'm going to start down the opposite end Mr Oliver I'm going to let Mrs White be the
154first one for your discussion well why thank you um so you know I first want to say a huge thank you to everyone that's involved in our search committee um and certainly to the candidates who came forward it's it's a lot to come forward and apply for positions specifically in the district where you work that's nerve-wracking with your colleagues for me personally you know after looking on the materials and then feedback from from our staff I I do feel very comfortable with my choice I thought there was one candidate who tonight spoke more specifically definitely you know had a feat on the ground uh experience with her colleagues and had very specific programming in mind um you know when we asked questions this person was able to talk about you know what's instituted with it
155in the school now as well as like specific ways we can improve and take advantage of our amazing staff across the district and I think as we you know certainly we know and I think it was spoken about clearly in both of our interviews with these folks tonight that we are and we know throughout everything that we're approaching a fiscal cliff and a big part of our budget is special education and also we also have a number of students many students who have challenges um you know even before the covet pandemic and now certainly exacerbated by that so I think that you know this person in my mind has is better poised to you know take advantage of the assets that we have as a district and have very specific ideas to move forward so
156again you know my my choice would be Miss dianicio so I think she again at this point is a stronger candidate and was a standout for me thank you Mary Mr Oliver oh we're jumping back to me all right never mind Kathleen I also going to say thank you um no I I just um so what I you know I sort of said this with the superintendent search you feel as though you come into something with a sort of sort of lens or a bias or a thought because of the lived experience that you have um with the candidates um I feel that you know um I feel an obligation to have some sensitivity around our deliberation because these are our staff and so they are part of our district and clearly we see both
157of them um in such a way that we are proud to have them here and they're employed with us and um and I have the unique lens that uh I know both of the candidates I have received all of lots of feedback um and my son is full disclosure I've mentioned this probably a million times but he uh is a product of Quinn Elementary and and then there did come a time when what was in the best interest of him in a in a thoughtful way a very difficult and thoughtful way has brought me to have a relationship with Mitch joywin I I I'm so sorry I terrible and um and so and I and and and I also have a feeling around what we really need as a district and I do believe that
158you know both candidates are lovely but one really did speak to and knowing this person personally did really speak to some some specifics around what I feel would help us move forward in the special education department uh in a way that um you know in terms of like relationship building and that sort of thing um and so I I I am leaning I'm split I I would like to hear what I appreciate what you what you shared I um I would like to hear what my colleagues think I would like to hear the remaining members think because I I do feel that both folks are qualified yes one may be in an administrative position but you know stepping back I don't feel that that's the be-all end-all I do feel like it's about the humanity
159and about the relationship and in the culture of of that department um and so I'm really interested in everyone's thoughts and opinion specific to this um and having heard the you know received the feedback as well I know a lot of people tended to send some feedback to me and I thought please just don't send that to me it is an incredibly awkward position to be in and so I I asked permission and we showed it to the to the group although I know that lots of folks have been reaching out to the whole committee as well but um and so I would like to you know I I do have somebody in mind but I not to keep you guessing but I just feel like I would like to I think it's important for
160me having the perspective that I have that I hear from everyone before um before I go of course or offer that opinion Dr Jenkins yeah so I thought both candidates were great um as with our first search they have two sort of different strengths um you know I guess I'm looking at this right now as sort of where we are as a district as a whole we have a new superintendent coming in who's going to be sort of learning the ropes and we have one candidate who I mean I think they were both great but I am concerned about the lack of management experience I'm concerned about the lack of budget experience from Miss dionisio I love her I think she's awesome her passion is fabulous but she's been a team leader for two years
161I don't even think two full years it sounds a little bit more like a year and a half maybe I don't have a resume in front of me um she hasn't doesn't have the extensive management experience which I feel like when we have a superintendent um coming in and trying to figure their way around the district to also have our pupils Services administrator not having that central office experience I just worry about how that's going to work so I appreciate both of the candidates but I think for maybe some practical reasons I I might lean more towards Miss Jones well I appreciate everyone's feedback thus far I think first of all we have two great candidates I'm thrilled that they're both internal it says a lot about what we're doing as a district in you
162know I love to see us being able to within our capacity grow our own leaders in this District we have Lori jobwin Mrs jodwin who certainly has served in the capacity by the district coordinator gave a very compelling interview this evening um certainly has a quite a bit of management experience budgeting experience with without a districts um on the other side we have Lori dionisio who is clearly a very passionate educator that's really up until a couple of years ago she she was certainly well related service provider as a speech language pathologist clearly has an extreme amount of passion and an ability to connect with staff um at a on a personal level I do agree and Echo some concerns around the budgeting of having a new superintendent coming in is a little bit of
163a concern in the lack of budget experience with this position being such a high profile position for for finance I do agree to some extent that a lot of the costs are fixed transportation tuitions and obviously Staffing right what I would like to remind the committee some of you who was not here at the time but when we were interviewing um for this position uh when um when Mrs Townsend took over she came to us and she presented to us and I have a resume up here I was able to go back and with a little over close to four years of principal experience in speaking from now a professional standpoint of being in education I know that principles there's not a lot of wiggle room in a principal's budget so as far as budgeting
164goes I don't see and you know I'm not I'm not trying to disrespect any of our principals that may be in the audience but essentially central office really gives the principles their budget um that that's that's a fact other than advocating for Staffing changes your supply lines are pretty much the only thing that you you're able to manipulate in in order from so I like I said I'd like to remind everyone that um it's she only had four uh Beth only had four years of principal experience no central office experience and no special education um well special education administrator experience so weighing both of them while I certainly have concerns around the budgeting aspect I want to believe that Mrs dionisio would do what it takes to work on the budget and that's the only
165way that I would that I would see this possible Mrs jodwin also has you know a tremendous amount of experience and she's been in this role I think she said for seven years now um however I think in my honest opinion that the special education department needs to go in a different direction and for those reasons I personally would have to support Lori dionisio I guess it's me uh thank you to everyone and again I'll look I'll let go of Mary's comments my just my thanks to uh everyone that's been involved in this process so you know those of us that gave up a Saturday in the rain to uh to interview all these candidates I will say this these two young ladies that were here tonight was exactly the same type of interview that
166they had that Saturday nothing has fluctuated so that's always that is always good it's always a lot of fun and it makes it interesting in my perspective uh when they make your job a lot tougher okay as I get a Miss Amaral in a break it you know this is why we get the big bucks to make these great decisions a type of deal that being said in all seriousness uh I thought both candidates were excellent uh their answers are entirely different you know so that makes it interesting type of deal uh however uh I'm one that and again yeah we're fortunate we have two in-house in and I'm a firm believer that if we have someone in-house type of deal you always you know if if they have the qualifications and such you know
167when they pass muster you give them an interview and let it go from there and you know let the chips fall where they where they fall again both candidates in-house did excellent and he interviews the writings pattern of it that we get that we gave to them I think uh I have to go back and and I have to you know lean towards uh Miss Jordan uh again with with the experience I'm you know being a being a nuts and bolts and a dollar guy I'm concerned about the budget you know I mean Miss Jordan did have some good answers you know with regard to the budget and how it's funded in and everything else this is a position that you've got to be able to you know wrap your hands around that budget because
168one of unfortunately one or two uh slip ups and we're in trouble you know District you know budget-wise district-wise Etc type of deal uh so I mean with with that and also it's just I am 99.99 certain I'm leaning towards uh Miss Jordan Miss Emerald gets well now I can uh right when you play Yankee Swap you can come back and you can I'm going to take your answer and your answer and yours no Blended um right ahead uh you said you wanted to no yeah I do want to come back to it um you know I'm I this is a difficult one you know and I I will start off by saying you know I I recognize the feedback I have uh perhaps maybe a different uh relationship with Lori J then um others
169and so I see a different side and I do see uh but but I what I loved about Lori D and I don't want to butcher anybody's name um and when you talk about the budget and I liked how she talked about the budget in terms of the people and um and the humanity in that and that it's about the stories and about the why um and so and so I I appreciate the creativity and I do think that that and the relationship building could reap rewards and so I don't want to come in and say oh I know Lori J and she's lovely and she's the assistant and I work well with her and and dismiss Laurie D because of the lack of central office experience when I do know and have heard and
170have consulted with have had several conversations around the incredible you know creativity in which and the lens in which she kind of approaches her work in this district and I do think that um have the relationship building you know you can learn the numbers I just did during covet I just got my MBA so you can learn the numbers and and you can learn that stuff um because I think there's a little bit of a learning curve for both of them because I don't I think there's some limit to what Miss Laurie J does in the scope of her work in terms of um outside of the title and so I think to not to dismiss either one of them but I do love the relationship building piece in terms of thinking about the numbers
171and the individuality that Lori brought Laurie D brought up in her interview that I just didn't want to not say that to others and you're processing and thinking so I uh yeah okay that's helpful okay that's good okay so we are now at a crossroad so I'll just get back to you know again like feedback and again I do want to reiterate that in the strains I thought they were they're both tremendously impressive candidates um I just still can't my the feedback I've gotten and I'll get back to as a you know as a representative um from is that you know there hasn't been in the special education department one of our weaknesses is that we haven't had people who've been present from the leadership as much um and so that seems to be something
172that I've received a lot of letters on from staff and families saying that they would really like to have someone who leads from within you know who's much more present and that was a really a significant Gap over the last few years and you know we really we do so much in this District with very little and our greatest asset are the people on the ground who are working with these students and we need someone who really is with those folks who can you know and who talks about them not just as teachers but as professionals and even further as assets that we can take advantage of and I don't mean like take advantage of but I mean like but we can use throughout this District because we have these internal strengths I thought that
173was a very strong testimonial that Laurie dionysio I'm going to try made because you know we need people who believe in their leaders and over and over again the testimonies I've received have been you know testifying to how much belief they have in in her leadership and she has been a facilitator it's not as though she hasn't had any leadership that's been really real um and and she values her people and I don't want to say that Lori you know Lori J doesn't it just was conveyed to me like over and over again you know that the staff are are inspired by Miss dionarsio and I think they're willing to you know to to you know again because she's called collaborator and she's someone who you know really wants to take forth their great ideas
174and then put them in their direct action and and again that just was conveyed very clearly so I I mean I guess that's why I'm you know feeling very strong when this one um in favor Miss Diane Ico because I I really want to give the hearing to our our staff and her the people who work with her I think that's important so Miss real estate anyone else okay thank you much appreciate it yeah I think we have two qualified candidates in front of us we do for different reasons this is a tough one yeah the nice thing is with all the you don't lose with either one we don't okay we we certainly Jeff first in my opinion they each have their strengths I agree type of deal so that's what we have so
175I kind of feel like the old Bonanza when and cut right at the house the queen and the booth for the you know the winner but I'll say this the number one concern I have with Laurie dionisio is the budget the number one concern I have with Lori jodwin is being out invisible in relationship building when you put that aside I think that the budget piece can be worked on can be learned we've seen it from our past our current special education director Mrs Townsend she learned it she's done a heck of a good job with it with keeping the budget straight and I I'm sure it's also has a little bit to do with our our business manager our assistant superintendent of Finance with keeping those numbers straight I work closely with my special
176education director in the central Office Team and my my district and I think for for the reasons that some of us have stated I'm I'll make a motion that this school committee appoints Lori dionisio as the pupil Support Services administrator I'll second that so we have a motion by Mr Oliver second by Miss Waite to appoint Lori d anisio as Benicio as the new pupil support service administrator make sure I have to title correct it's a mouthful that's with all the that's why I said earlier sped it was just a lot easier it's a lot easier it really is that type of deal so we have that motion we have a second on the motion any discussion I would say no discussion I I am supportive um and I think again we not to be
177but we we have two candidates who are part of our our family and part of our community um and it's it's really about weighing you know the pros and the cons and I appreciate everyone's thoughts and um that's all I have to add that's fine anybody else okay all in favor aye aye opposed passes three to two congratulations [Applause] subject to contract negotiations all right so that finally Believe It or Not takes care of all the business and I think this has been and we're right on time believe it or not we're right on time get out of here well no we're ahead of time go we are ahead of time anyhow okay goodness that being said we're good and we move on to new business we already took care of the reserve fund transfer
178uh superintendent's update I'll be quick um fine so uh MCAS this week lots going on in the schools uh I did want to report back that um you know I thank the middle school and the middle school staff Mr Rossi and his team they Friday night had a middle school dance for the first time since 2019. they had sold 353 tickets which is a lot I mean it's pretty impressive they thought they were going to use part of the gym they ended up using the whole gym they had more than 30 staff volunteer for it and every everybody had a good time from what I understand so I was happy to hear that um saw some pictures they would dress to the nines it was great they look good um we we are a hosting
179uh the department of Ed for the next couple of days for the tiered Focus monitoring visit so that's always fun um but we're prepared well prepared um you thanked everybody for all their efforts through the searches both searches I just wanted to reiterate that it was really a big ask for a lot of people and um a lot of very busy people so I just really appreciate all the effort that everyone put in um and the only thing yeah the other thing we already talked about was the finance committee Thursday night so yeah okay any questions for the super this end I was just curious as to you brought up doctor Middle School how the transition has been I know that uh Mr Rossi has been kind of been weaning in over the past six
180months uh so it just curious as to how that's going I think he's doing a great job yeah he's doing a great job he's certainly taken ownership of everything and uh he's he's Off to the Races you know without a hitch really and yeah he's been doing great and uh have been impressed now I've heard I've heard no complaints I've heard a lot of positive things coming out of the middle school with that I'm just wondering um and my apologies if this has already been brought up but have have we considered bringing Mr Doane back just for some recognition for his years of service I I think he was and I don't know I this might have we might have spoken about this I just do not remember um and and I think uh for
181his years of service and dedication uh to the Dartmouth Public Schools I think it would be nice if we recognize Mr Doane for the um the culture that he built at the middle school it certainly would be well deserved for sure I'd be happy to have him back no we no we did not he didn't miss anything Chris seriously I you know I wanted to stop by right to say goodbye and all of a sudden I I think I was speaking to someone they're like oh he's take I don't know already gone yeah that would be nice yeah so so maybe we could set that up for a future meeting sure yeah I think you had talked about there's one of the things that occurred to me is when we have the new teachers come
182in about doing something akin to that with retirees and it sounds like we only have one retiree this this year but you know that's the you know how we of course bring in the news features in the beginning of the meeting and you know welcome them so something like that as a tradition is nice in general yeah um especially from Mr Jones I think given Darren's role in The District as a as a leader for so many oh yes it would be I think good to do something just for him yeah absolutely okay anybody else so I just two things I remind you I sent you an email I forgot about our spelling bee team I've let them know we spont we're going to sponsor a team we just have to commit so I sent
183you all an email about that when did you do that just like a half hour ago also I'm just letting you know because I hadn't up until the time and I also like to try to say these things in open meeting that I did this and it's just it's no deliberation it's just a reminder about that yeah we already all agreed on correct uh the second thing um I'd like to reiterate my request that we provide our student representative with all of the materials for our meetings the agenda the budget all of these things anything that is not pertaining to Executive session I would hope that we could provide to him when the school committee gets that and then if he can't make it and someone else from the committee is coming it would be
184his responsibility to pass that along but I would hope that we can start regularly providing him with that information so he can more actively participate in meetings Kathleen anything okay okay uh Barry you all set I am thank you okay a couple of things well more than a couple of things Jim just in all services a moment to thank you for your leadership you talked about us with the work we did but uh with the superintendent and sped direct deposition but your leadership getting us through it and you know coordinating with Jim Hardy and all the different uh schools and districts to uh to make the tours and you know driving around in in that type of deal that didn't go unnoticed and thank you very much thank you thank you I appreciate that appreciate
185it Dr Jenkins said it's not over yet and he did all that because he wanted to make sure it would be over at the appointed date that's right because you'll let it no I'm never mind I was going to say something about them just uh two things I mean a fall sport uh not fall I went to sports teams they had a fantastic season congratulations to them I know our spring sports are up and running so hopefully they'll have a you know they will have as much success uh this past weekend our color guard and the percussion and winds were both at New Bedford High School Saturday night and uh up in uh Dudley up at Shepherd Hill Sunday afternoon and Saturday night all four groups the JV color guide Varsity guide wins and percussion
186took first place in their class and then Sunday was just the wins and percussion and again they both took first place and had an increase in scores both times so that was good next Sunday this coming Sunday April 2nd uh uh the music department here is hosting nesba finals for percussion and wins uh starts at one o'clock I'm assuming doors will open it at 12 tickets of fifteen dollars for adults and students and seniors are ten dollars and it is cash only you know sometimes you can come in you can use a venmo or you know anything of that nature no they're all it's all cash type of deal so we we host that I've got an email out to them about uh you know doing I need presenters or anything of that nature and
187unfortunately they're not like our superintendent and sped candidates very collaborative and communicate so I'll keep you posted if I need anyone I'll send out an email type of deal also on there is the night the ninth uh we're going to have our annual night of percussion with all our groups and we also have a group coming in from Pennsylvania that's going to be performing their jazz band and concert band and such that night starting at seven o'clock in the gym so uh and I think it I think I'm not quite sure what the the prices on that I'll be honest I asked and didn't write it down so that's that so that's what's going on uh on my end of it and of course they're all getting ready to uh I'll talk about that next
188time when they start heading to Dayton and such so with that Mr Nunes just us oh I I know I remember on this side at the same um I saw the show in choir too it looks like the show choir was up and running it's something that I'm not you know I knew we started this launch this year so I thought that was really exciting to see that they it looks like they were all you know did a great job and so it's exciting to see that addition to our program and a lot of kids that I've seen in our other you know programming coming together for that so of course they work that's right thank you they were out uh Saturday night because they go back the same time we did okay the not
189we did with the abandoned the winds and percussion did type down I understand they took second place yeah I think Robbie cyclop excuse me I've got best in show or some special award I noticed you know again just glancing over social media but I think that was exciting I think the concept band is at a mica competition on Friday okay so that's great lots of great busy there music program that being said and that being said well tonight is Miss Waits last meeting and I'm gonna throw a joke in there and a week I might come back for half of these hopefully not but go away for um just you know being just it's it you will be missed thank you so appreciate your time and your friendship and on behalf of the committee well
190thank you guys I appreciate it [Applause] yeah so I'll just take a second to say um thank you it's been um a journey and a great thing to be here with all of you guys you know I just I've learned a lot on this job I came certainly at a really difficult time with coven and uh you know I think we all shared some frustrations and fears along the way and in that attorney and it was a different job I think in many ways during that time so I have to say that you know I've really been I've learned so much by each of your modeling and um you know I I you know want to also say just a few moments for Mr Kiley thank you for all you've done you know your gracious
191leadership and you know work ethic I think when I was looking at a superintendent I won't lie I had you as a model even though I know you didn't want to be a neck in it you know position but um you know it has been a real learning experience and you know you know it's also launched me and back into my original career because I've been pretty inspired by the people I've seen here so that's that's been exciting too and who knows maybe I'll find my way back here at some point but but and also I have to say um good luck Kathleen I want to see you I don't want to split these flowers I want you have your Mary thank you very much for everything we appreciate it uh like anything else we
192don't always agree but it's always appreciated your thought and your Insight is always appreciated and we thank you for that I thank you for that yeah thank you Mary wish you the best thank you okay with that the chair will entertain a motion to adjourn into executive session for the purposes of collective bargaining with Union personnel and non-union personnel and not return to open session so so moved moved by Mr Oliver second by Dr Jenkins on the motion any discussion chair hearing on all in favor say aye aye I'm sorry my phone yes roll call John Nunes yes Mary wait yeah wow thank you